Shea said Ogilvy Renault’s plan to merge with the United Kingdom’s Norton Rose Group next June was the only reason for his decision to switch to a law firm that has a different platform for Canadian and international business.

The McGill and Princeton-educated Shea worked for five years with Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP in New York before practising for the past six years at Ogilvy Renault, where he was co-chair of the private equity practice group.

I feel that the transaction is a good move and the right move for Ogilvy and for Norton Rose. At the same time, I concluded that it was a good move for Ogilvy I decided that it was just not the right move for me.

Why not?

The Blakes platform, the Blakes strategy, is a better fit for me and my clients. In a nutshell, much of my “clientele” are major law firms abroad, particularly major law firms in the United States and these law firms and the folks that I know very well at these law firms wish to work and to continue to work with leading national law firms in a variety of different countries.

With those strong relationships come referrals both from me and others in Canada to those firms and back again.

The Blakes strategy of being a preeminent national law firm with great contacts around the world is a strategy that is better suited to the fact that I have a very extensive and developed network in the United States rather than the international law firm model which Ogilvy is now becoming part of, where your network is a network that is an internal network of internal referrals from the firm’s offices abroad but to the exclusion essentially of referrals from outside of that network.

But Norton Rose has no presence in the United States?

If you look at the public record Norton Rose has been very explicit about wanting to be in the U.S. in a major way in the very short term. They have been very vocal and public about it, that they will be in the U.S. in a major way in the next few years.

So that would conflict with firms that do the referral business?

It (the Norton Rose international strategy) is a different model, a different strategy from the preeminent national law firm strategy. I began my career, first five years with Cravath Swaine & Moore and Cravath is really the very model, at least in the U.S,. of the pre3minent national law firm strategy. I was certainly imbued by that model in my very formative years and since I returned back to Montreal in 2004 continued to develop what was already a pretty deep set of contacts in the U.S. and I have developed those over the past six years and want to continue to develop that network.

The question of Canadian law firms not wanting to lose U.S. referral work has come up a lot in talk about possible mergers by Canadian law firms with foreign law firms in the future? Why?

Every firm considering what its future options are needs to look at what its current model is and what are its sources of revenues and work, and will make decisions based on that. Ogilvy made decisions based on its model. Other law firms presumably will continue to reevaluate –it is healthy to reevaluate, but based on facts and circumstance and every law firm is in a different circumstance.

How did you connect with Blakes?

I have had strong relationships with people at the firm for years and I was attracted by two things, the strategy as a preeminent national firm, but also the strength of the Blakes platform.

More specifically, my clients turn to me for Canadian law advice and therefore they tend to focus on, what is the scope and depth of the services the firm can offer and obviously what appealed to me is Blakes position in Canada, its reputation as one of the preeminent firms, and also the fact that it has a very material presence in each of the major cities of Canada, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa, both great geographical scope and depth and quality. The national platform was of great appeal.

Cravath also has a connection with Blakes does it not?

Cravath and Blakes have for many years had a strong relationship — on both ends by no means an exclusive relationship.

Photo (Ogilvy Renault): M&A lawyer Patrick Shea has moved to Blakes in Montreal.

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